FARTHER AND SON
Striker’s dad could teach Solskjaer a thing or two about discipline.. & how to ‘scold’ troublesome kids
IT was the spat that muted talk of another Tottenham defeat – so just who is Heung-min Son’s dad?
And is Jose Mourinho right, is he really a better person than Ole Gunnar Solskjaer?
The Manchester United manager’s qualities were called into question after he accused Son of making the most of a foul in the build-up to their early disallowed goal in Spurs’ 3-1 defeat on Sunday.
He said: “If my son stays down for three minutes, he won’t get any food.” Mourinho responded by saying Son is “lucky his father is a better person than Ole”.
But according to Son’s brother Heung-yoon, the Spurs star first learned to fake injury in order to stop their father Woong-jung from “scolding” him.
Speaking to the makers of the Amazon Prime documentary “Sonsational”, released in the UK earlier this year, Heung-yoon recalled: “Me and Heung-min had different ways of dealing with dad. I’m more like our father, so I had more attitude and would get punished for it. But Heung-min was cheekier.
“He acted like he’s hurt before dad punished him. He would roll on the ground before dad hit him. So I got scolded a lot more.”
Both brothers use “scolded” freely throughout the documentary without really defining it.
Heung-yoon comes closest. “Dad couldn’t spank us on the bottom because he wouldn’t wait for us to bend over. We would have 10-20 balls on the ground at training. He kicked them towards us, as if he was shooting.
“Once an old lady, who was passing by, tried to call the police because we were being brutally scolded.”
Son himself pointed out the double-standard when his dad committed one of the minor technical faults for which the boys were punished.
“I still remember saying dad is lucky he does not get scolded when he makes mistakes,” said the Spurs hitman. “That’s how frightened I was of my dad. I was so frightened to make a mistake.”
Dad himself says in the film: “My approach was a regime – people thought I was Sonny’s stepfather, I was so harsh on him.”
Nevertheless, the pair remain close and even at Spurs, Woongjung, a former South Korea B international, still puts Son through his paces in extra sessions at the training ground.
Controversial or not, it is a strategy that has served the family well after relatively humble beginnings in Chuncheon, South Korea. “Father was a strict teacher,” Son added. “But that strictness had a strong influence on me.
“He is my soccer senior, friend and teacher. A really good father.”